A Time-Dependent Formulation of Coupled-Cluster Theory for Many-Fermion Systems at Finite Temperature

New Dimension in Ab Initio Electronic Structure Theory: Temperature, Pressure, and Chemical Potential

Ab initio electronic structure theory has transformed gas-phase molecular science with its predictive ability. In the attempt to bring such predictive ability to macroscopic systems and condensed matter, the theory must integrate quantum mechanics with statistical thermodynamics so that thermodynamic functions such as free energy, internal energy, entropy, and chemical potentials are computed as functions of temperature in a systematically converging series of approximations. A general, versatile strategy of elevating any ab initio electronic structure theory to nonzero temperatures is introduced and discussed.

Vibrational Electronic-Thermofield Coupled Cluster (VE-TFCC) Theory for Quantum Simulations of Vibronic Coupling Systems at Thermal Equilibrium

A vibrational electronic-thermofield coupled cluster (VE-TFCC) approach is developed to calculate thermal properties of non-adiabatic vibronic coupling systems. The thermofield (TF) theory and a mixed linear exponential ansatz based on second-quantized Bosonic construction operators are introduced to propagate the thermal density operator as a "pure state" in the Bogoliubov representation. Through this compact representation of the thermal density operator, the approach is basis-set-free and scales classically (polynomial) as the number of degrees of freedoms (DoF) in the system increases. The VE-TFCC approach is benchmarked with small test models and a real molecular compound (CoF4- anion) against the conventional sum over states (SOS) method and applied to calculate thermochemistry properties of a gas-phase reaction: CoF3 + F- → CoF4-. Results shows that the VE-TFCC approach, in conjunction with vibronic models, provides an effective protocol for calculating thermodynamic properties of vibronic coupling systems.

Coupled-cluster theory for trapped bosonic mixtures

We develop a coupled-cluster theory for bosonic mixtures of binary species in external traps, providing a promising theoretical approach to demonstrate highly accurately the many-body physics of mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates. The coupled-cluster wavefunction for the binary species is obtained when an exponential cluster operator eT, where T = T(1) + T(2) + T(12) and T(1) accounts for excitations in species-1, T(2) for excitations in species-2, and T(12) for combined excitations in both species, acts on the ground state configuration prepared by accumulating all bosons in a single orbital for each species. We have explicitly derived the working equations for bosonic mixtures by truncating the cluster operator up to the single and double excitations and using arbitrary sets of orthonormal orbitals for each of the species. Furthermore, the comparatively simplified version of the working equations are formulated using the Fock-like operators. Finally, using an exactly solvable many-body model for bosonic mixtures that exists in the literature allows us to implement and test the performance and accuracy of the coupled-cluster theory for situations with balanced as well as imbalanced boson numbers and for weak to moderately strong intra- and interspecies interaction strengths. The comparison between our computed results using coupled-cluster theory with the respective analytical exact results displays remarkable agreement exhibiting excellent success of the coupled-cluster theory for bosonic mixtures. All in all, the correlation exhaustive coupled-cluster theory shows encouraging results and could be a promising approach in paving the way for high-accuracy modeling of various bosonic mixture systems.

Stable recursive auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo algorithm in the canonical ensemble: Applications to thermometry and the Hubbard model

Many experimentally accessible, finite-sized interacting quantum systems are most appropriately described by the canonical ensemble of statistical mechanics. Conventional numerical simulation methods either approximate them as being coupled to a particle bath or use projective algorithms which may suffer from nonoptimal scaling with system size or large algorithmic prefactors. In this paper, we introduce a highly stable, recursive auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo approach that can directly simulate systems in the canonical ensemble. We apply the method to the fermion Hubbard model in one and two spatial dimensions in a regime known to exhibit a significant "sign" problem and find improved performance over existing approaches including rapid convergence to ground-state expectation values. The effects of excitations above the ground state are quantified using an estimator-agnostic approach including studying the temperature dependence of the purity and overlap fidelity of the canonical and grand canonical density matrices. As an important application, we show that thermometry approaches often exploited in ultracold atoms that employ an analysis of the velocity distribution in the grand canonical ensemble may be subject to errors leading to an underestimation of extracted temperatures with respect to the Fermi temperature.

Real-Time Equation-of-Motion Coupled-Cluster Cumulant Green's Function Method: Heterogeneous Parallel Implementation Based on the Tensor Algebra for Many-Body Methods Infrastructure

We report the implementation of the real-time equation-of-motion coupled-cluster (RT-EOM-CC) cumulant Green's function method [ J. Chem. Phys. 2020, 152, 174113] within the Tensor Algebra for Many-body Methods (TAMM) infrastructure. TAMM is a massively parallel heterogeneous tensor library designed for utilizing forthcoming exascale computing resources. The two-body electron repulsion matrix elements are Cholesky-decomposed, and we imposed spin-explicit forms of the various operators when evaluating the tensor contractions. Unlike our previous real algebra Tensor Contraction Engine (TCE) implementation, the TAMM implementation supports fully complex algebra. The RT-EOM-CC singles (S) and doubles (D) time-dependent amplitudes are propagated using a first-order Adams-Moulton method. This new implementation shows excellent scalability tested up to 500 GPUs using the Zn-porphyrin molecule with 655 basis functions, with parallel efficiencies above 90% up to 400 GPUs. The TAMM RT-EOM-CCSD was used to study core photoemission spectra in the formaldehyde and ethyl trifluoroacetate (ESCA) molecules. Simulations of the latter involve as many as 71 occupied and 649 virtual orbitals. The relative quasiparticle ionization energies and overall spectral functions agree well with available experimental results.

On the Chemical Potential of Many-Body Perturbation Theory in Extended Systems

Finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory in the grand-canonical ensemble is fundamental to numerous methods for computing electronic properties at nonzero temperature, such as finite-temperature coupled-cluster. In most applications it is the average number of electrons that is known rather than the chemical potential. Expensive correlation calculations must be repeated iteratively in search for the interacting chemical potential that yields the desired average number of electrons. In extended systems with mobile charges the situation is particular, however. Long-ranged electrostatic forces drive the charges such that the average ratio of negative and positive charges is one for any finite chemical potential. All properties per electron are expected to be virtually independent of the chemical potential, as they are in an electric wire at different voltage potentials. This work shows that per electron, the exchange-correlation free energy and the exchange-correlation grand potential indeed agree in the infinite-size limit. Thus, only one expensive correlation calculation suffices for each system size, sparing the search for the interacting chemical potential. This work also demonstrates the importance of regularizing the Coulomb interaction such that each electron on average interacts only with as many electrons as there are electrons in the simulation, avoiding interactions with periodic images. Numerical calculations of the warm uniform electron gas have been conducted with the Spencer-Alavi regularization employing the finite-temperature Hartree approximation for the self-consistent field and linearized finite-temperature direct-ring coupled-cluster doubles for treating correlation.

Efficient fully-coherent quantum signal processing algorithms for real-time dynamics simulation

Simulating the unitary dynamics of a quantum system is a fundamental problem of quantum mechanics, in which quantum computers are believed to have significant advantage over their classical counterparts. One prominent such instance is the simulation of electronic dynamics, which plays an essential role in chemical reactions, non-equilibrium dynamics, and material design. These systems are time-dependent, which requires that the corresponding simulation algorithm can be successfully concatenated with itself over different time intervals to reproduce the overall coherent quantum dynamics of the system. In this paper, we quantify such simulation algorithms by the property of being fully-coherent: the algorithm succeeds with arbitrarily high success probability 1 - δ while only requiring a single copy of the initial state. We subsequently develop fully-coherent simulation algorithms based on quantum signal processing (QSP), including a novel algorithm that circumvents the use of amplitude amplification while also achieving a query complexity additive in time t, ln(1/δ), and ln(1/ϵ) for error tolerance ϵ: Θ‖H‖|t|+ln(1/ϵ)+ln(1/δ). Furthermore, we numerically analyze these algorithms by applying them to the simulation of the spin dynamics of the Heisenberg model and the correlated electronic dynamics of an H₂ molecule. Since any electronic Hamiltonian can be mapped to a spin Hamiltonian, our algorithm can efficiently simulate time-dependent ab initio electronic dynamics in the circuit model of quantum computation. Accordingly, it is also our hope that the present work serves as a bridge between QSP-based quantum algorithms and chemical dynamics, stimulating a cross-fertilization between these exciting fields.

Chemical potential, derivative discontinuity, fractional electrons, jump of the Kohn-Sham potential, atoms as thermodynamic open systems, and other (mis)conceptions of the density functional theory of electrons in molecules

Many references exist in the density functional theory (DFT) literature to the chemical potential of the electrons in an atom or a molecule. The origin of this notion has been the identification of the Lagrange multiplier μ = ∂E/∂N in the Euler-Lagrange variational equation for the ground state density as the chemical potential of the electrons. We first discuss why the Lagrange multiplier in this case is an arbitrary constant and therefore cannot be a physical characteristic of an atom or molecule. The switching of the energy derivative ("chemical potential") from -I to -A when the electron number crosses the integer, called integer discontinuity or derivative discontinuity, is not physical but only occurs when the nonphysical noninteger electron systems and the corresponding energy and derivative ∂E/∂N are chosen in a specific discontinuous way. The question is discussed whether in fact the thermodynamical concept of a chemical potential can be defined for the electrons in such few-electron systems as atoms and molecules. The conclusion is that such systems lack important characteristics of thermodynamic systems and do not afford the definition of a chemical potential. They also cannot be considered as analogues of the open systems of thermodynamics that can exchange particles with an environment (a particle bath or other members of a Gibbsian ensemble). Thermodynamical (statistical mechanical) concepts like chemical potential, open systems, grand canonical ensemble etc. are not applicable to a few electron system like an atom or molecule. A number of topics in DFT are critically reviewed in light of these findings: jumps in the Kohn-Sham potential when crossing an integer number of electrons, the band gap problem, the deviation-from-straight-lines error, and the role of ensembles in DFT.

Machine learning for a finite size correction in periodic coupled cluster theory calculations

We introduce a straightforward Gaussian process regression (GPR) model for the transition structure factor of metal periodic coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) calculations. This is inspired by the method introduced by Liao and Gr\"uneis for interpolating over the transition structure factor to obtain a finite size correction for CCSD [J. Chem. Phys. 145, 141102 (2016)], and by our own prior work using the transition structure factor to efficiently converge CCSD for metals to the thermodynamic limit [Nat. Comput. Sci. 1, 801 (2021)]. In our CCSD-FS-GPR method to correct for finite size errors, we fit the structure factor to a 1D function in the momentum transfer, $G$.We then integrate over this function by projecting it onto a k-point mesh to obtain comparisons with extrapolated results. Results are shown for lithium, sodium, and the uniform electron gas.

Real-Time Equation-of-Motion CCSD Cumulant Green's Function

Many-body excitations in X-ray photoemission spectra have been difficult to simulate from first principles. We have recently developed a cumulant-based one-electron Green's function method using the real-time coupled-cluster-singles equation-of-motion approach (RT-EOM-CCS) that provides a general framework for treating these problems. Here we extend this approach to include double excitations in the ground-state energy and in the coupled cluster amplitudes, which have been implemented using subroutines generated by the Tensor Contraction Engine (TCE). As in the case of the singles approximation, RT-EOM-CCSD yields a nonperturbative cumulant form of the Green's function in terms of the time-dependent cluster amplitudes, adding nonlinear corrections to the traditional cumulant forms. The extended approach is applied to the core-hole spectral function for small molecular systems. We find that, when core-optimized basis sets are used, the doubles contributions reduce the mean absolute errors in the core binding energies of the 10e systems from 0.8 to 0.3 eV. They also significantly improve the quasiparticle-satellite gap by reducing its overestimation from about 3-5 to about 0-1 eV in CH₄, NH₃, and H₂O, and also improving the overall shape of the satellite features. Finally, we demonstrate the application of the new implementation to the larger, classical XPS ESCA series of molecules and show that the singles approximation can be paired with a modest basis set to study carbon speciation.

Coupling Natural Orbital Functional Theory and Many-Body Perturbation Theory by Using Nondynamically Correlated Canonical Orbitals

We develop a new family of electronic structure methods for capturing at the same time the dynamic and nondynamic correlation effects. We combine the natural orbital functional theory (NOFT) and many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) through a canonicalization procedure applied to the natural orbitals to gain access to any MBPT approximation. We study three different scenarios: corrections based on second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2), random-phase approximation (RPA), and coupled-cluster singles doubles (CCSD). Several chemical problems involving different types of electron correlation in singlet and multiplet spin states have been considered. Our numerical tests reveal that RPA-based and CCSD-based corrections provide similar relative errors in molecular dissociation energies (D_e) to the results obtained using a MP2 correction. With respect to the MP2 case, the CCSD-based correction improves the prediction, while the RPA-based correction reduces the computational cost.

The Sign Problem in Density Matrix Quantum Monte Carlo

Density matrix quantum Monte Carlo (DMQMC) is a recently developed method for stochastically sampling the N-particle thermal density matrix to obtain exact-on-average energies for model and ab initio systems. We report a systematic numerical study of the sign problem in DMQMC based on simulations of atomic and molecular systems. In DMQMC, the density matrix is written in an outer product basis of Slater determinants. In principle, this means that DMQMC needs to sample a space that scales in the system size, N, as O[(exp(N))²]. In practice, removing the sign problem requires a total walker population that exceeds a system-dependent critical walker population (N_c), imposing limitations on both storage and compute time. We establish that N_c for DMQMC is the square of N_c for FCIQMC. By contrast, the minimum N_c in the interaction picture modification of DMQMC (IP-DMQMC) is only linearly related to the N_c for FCIQMC. We find that this difference originates from the difference in propagation of IP-DMQMC versus canonical DMQMC: the former is asymmetric, whereas the latter is symmetric. When an asymmetric mode of propagation is used in DMQMC, there is a much greater stochastic error and is thus prohibitively expensive for DMQMC without the interaction picture adaptation. Finally, we find that the equivalence between IP-DMQMC and FCIQMC seems to extend to the initiator approximation, which is often required to study larger systems with large basis sets. This suggests that IP-DMQMC offers a way to ameliorate the cost of moving between a Slater determinant space and an outer product basis.

Finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory for electrons: Algebraic recursive definitions, second-quantized derivation, linked-diagram theorem, general-order algorithms, and grand canonical and canonical ensembles

A comprehensive and detailed account is presented for the finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory for electrons that expands in power series all thermodynamic functions on an equal footing. Algebraic recursions in the style of the Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation theory are derived for the grand potential, chemical potential, internal energy, and entropy in the grand canonical ensemble and for the Helmholtz energy, internal energy, and entropy in the canonical ensemble, leading to their sum-over-states analytical formulas at any arbitrary order. For the grand canonical ensemble, these sum-over-states formulas are systematically transformed to sum-over-orbitals reduced analytical formulas by the quantum-field-theoretical techniques of normal-ordered second quantization and Feynman diagrams extended to finite temperature. It is found that the perturbation corrections to energies entering the recursions have to be treated as a nondiagonal matrix, whose off-diagonal elements are generally nonzero within a subspace spanned by degenerate Slater determinants. They give rise to a unique set of linked diagrams-renormalization diagrams-whose resolvent lines are displaced upward, which are distinct from the well-known anomalous diagrams of which one or more resolvent lines are erased. A linked-diagram theorem is introduced that proves the size-consistency of the finite-temperature many-body perturbation theory at any order. General-order algorithms implementing the recursions establish the convergence of the perturbation series toward the finite-temperature full-configuration-interaction limit unless the series diverges. The normal-ordered Hamiltonian at finite temperature sheds light on the relationship between the finite-temperature Hartree-Fock and first-order many-body perturbation theories.

Conservation laws in coupled cluster dynamics at finite temperature

We extend the finite-temperature Keldysh non-equilibrium coupled cluster theory (Keldysh-CC) [A. F. White and G. K.-L. Chan, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 15, 6137-6253 (2019)] to include a time-dependent orbital basis. When chosen to minimize the action, such a basis restores local and global conservation laws (Ehrenfest's theorem) for all one-particle properties while remaining energy conserving for time-independent Hamiltonians. We present the time-dependent Keldysh orbital-optimized coupled cluster doubles method in analogy with the formalism for zero-temperature dynamics, extended to finite temperatures through the time-dependent action on the Keldysh contour. To demonstrate the conservation property and understand the numerical performance of the method, we apply it to several problems of non-equilibrium finite-temperature dynamics: a 1D Hubbard model with a time-dependent Peierls phase, laser driving of molecular H₂, driven dynamics in warm-dense silicon, and transport in the single impurity Anderson model.

Real-time dynamics of strongly correlated fermions using auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo

Spurred by recent technological advances, there is a growing demand for computational methods that can accurately predict the dynamics of correlated electrons. Such methods can provide much-needed theoretical insights into the electron dynamics probed via time-resolved spectroscopy experiments and observed in non-equilibrium ultracold atom experiments. In this article, we develop and benchmark a numerically exact Auxiliary Field Quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method for modeling the dynamics of correlated electrons in real time. AFQMC has become a powerful method for predicting the ground state and finite temperature properties of strongly correlated systems mostly by employing constraints to control the sign problem. Our initial goal in this work is to determine how well AFQMC generalizes to real-time electron dynamics problems without constraints. By modeling the repulsive Hubbard model on different lattices and with differing initial electronic configurations, we show that real-time AFQMC is capable of accurately capturing long-lived electronic coherences beyond the reach of mean field techniques. While the times to which we can meaningfully model decrease with increasing correlation strength and system size as a result of the exponential growth of the dynamical phase problem, we show that our technique can model the short-time behavior of strongly correlated systems to very high accuracy. Crucially, we find that importance sampling, combined with a novel adaptive active space sampling technique, can substantially lengthen the times to which we can simulate. These results establish real-time AFQMC as a viable technique for modeling the dynamics of correlated electron systems and serve as a basis for future sampling advances that will further mitigate the dynamical phase problem.

Coupling electrons and vibrations in molecular quantum chemistry

We derive an electron-vibration model Hamiltonian in a quantum chemical framework and explore the extent to which such a Hamiltonian can capture key effects of nonadiabatic dynamics. The model Hamiltonian is a simple two-body operator, and we make preliminary steps at applying standard quantum chemical methods to evaluate its properties, including mean-field theory, linear response, and a primitive correlated model. The Hamiltonian can be compared to standard vibronic Hamiltonians, but it is constructed without reference to potential energy surfaces through direct differentiation of the one- and two-electron integrals at a single reference geometry. The nature of the model Hamiltonian in the harmonic and linear-coupling regime is investigated for pyrazine, where a simple time-dependent calculation including electron-vibration correlation is demonstrated to exhibit the well-studied population transfer between the S₂ and S₁ excited states.

Real-Time Coupled-Cluster Approach for the Cumulant Green's Function

Green's function methods within many-body perturbation theory provide a general framework for treating electronic correlations in excited states and spectra. Here, we develop the cumulant form of the one-electron Green's function using a real-time coupled-cluster equation-of-motion approach, in an extension of our previous study (Rehr J.; et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2020, 152, 174113). The approach yields a nonperturbative expression for the cumulant in terms of the solution to a set of coupled first-order, nonlinear differential equations. The method thereby adds nonlinear corrections to traditional cumulant methods, which are linear in the self-energy. The approach is applied to the core-hole Green's function and is illustrated for a number of small molecular systems. For these systems, we find that the nonlinear contributions yield significant improvements, both for quasiparticle properties such as core-level binding energies and for inelastic losses that correspond to satellites observed in photoemission spectra.

Exploiting chemistry and molecular systems for quantum information science

The power of chemistry to prepare new molecules and materials has driven the quest for new approaches to solve problems having global societal impact, such as in renewable energy, healthcare and information science. In the latter case, the intrinsic quantum nature of the electronic, nuclear and spin degrees of freedom in molecules offers intriguing new possibilities to advance the emerging field of quantum information science. In this Perspective, which resulted from discussions by the co-authors at a US Department of Energy workshop held in November 2018, we discuss how chemical systems and reactions can impact quantum computing, communication and sensing. Hierarchical molecular design and synthesis, from small molecules to supramolecular assemblies, combined with new spectroscopic probes of quantum coherence and theoretical modelling of complex systems, offer a broad range of possibilities to realize practical quantum information science applications.

Equation of motion coupled-cluster cumulant approach for intrinsic losses in x-ray spectra

We present a combined equation of motion coupled-cluster cumulant Green's function approach for calculating and understanding intrinsic inelastic losses in core level x-ray absorption spectra (XAS) and x-ray photoemission spectra. The method is based on a factorization of the transition amplitude in the time domain, which leads to a convolution of an effective one-body absorption spectrum and the core-hole spectral function. The spectral function characterizes intrinsic losses in terms of shake-up excitations and satellites using a cumulant representation of the core-hole Green's function that simplifies the interpretation. The one-body spectrum also includes orthogonality corrections that enhance the XAS at the edge.

Capturing static and dynamic correlation with ΔNO-MP2 and ΔNO-CCSD

The ΔNO method for static correlation is combined with second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) and coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) to account for dynamic correlation. The MP2 and CCSD expressions are adapted from finite-temperature CCSD, which includes orbital occupancies and vacancies, and expanded orbital summations. Correlation is partitioned with the aid of damping factors incorporated into the MP2 and CCSD residual equations. Potential energy curves for a selection of diatomics are in good agreement with extrapolated full configuration interaction results and on par with conventional multireference approaches.

An optimized twist angle to find the twist-averaged correlation energy applied to the uniform electron gas

We explore an alternative to twist averaging in order to obtain more cost-effective and accurate extrapolations to the thermodynamic limit (TDL) for coupled cluster doubles (CCD) calculations. We seek a single twist angle to perform calculations at, instead of integrating over many random points or a grid. We introduce the concept of connectivity, a quantity derived from the nonzero four-index integrals in an MP2 calculation. This allows us to find a special twist angle that provides appropriate connectivity in the energy equation, which yields results comparable to full twist averaging. This special twist angle effectively makes the finite electron number CCD calculation represent the TDL more accurately, reducing the cost of twist-averaged CCD over N_s twist angles from N_s CCD calculations to N_s MP2 calculations plus one CCD calculation.

Finite Temperature Coupled Cluster Theories for Extended Systems

At zero temperature, coupled cluster theories are widely used to predict total energies, ground state expectation values, and even excited states for molecules and extended systems. However, for systems with a small band gap, such as metals, the zero-temperature approximation does not necessarily hold. Thermal effects may even give rise to interesting chemistry on metal surfaces. Most approaches to temperature dependent electronic properties employ finite temperature perturbation theory in the Matsubara frequency formulation. Computations require a large number of Matsubara frequencies to yield sufficiently accurate results, especially at low temperatures. This work, and independently the work of White and Chan J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2018 , DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.8b00773 , proposes a coupled cluster implementation directly in the imaginary time domain on the compact interval [0, β], closely related to the thermal cluster cumulant approach of Sanyal et al. [ Chem. Phys. Lett. 1992 , 192 , 55 - 61 ] , Sanyal et al. [ Phys. Rev. E 1993 , 48 , 3373 - 3389 ], and Mandal et al. [ Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 2003 , 17 , 5367 - 5377 ]. Here, the arising imaginary time dependent coupled cluster amplitude integral equations are solved in the linearized direct ring doubles approximation, also referred to as Tamm-Dancoff approximation with second order (linearized) screened exchange. In this framework, the transition from finite to zero temperature is uniform and comes at no extra costs, allowing to go to temperatures as low as room temperature. In this approximation, correlation grand potentials are calculated over a wide range of temperatures for solid lithium, a metallic system, and for solid silicon, a semiconductor.